You surely don’t need telling that the 24 hours up to 09:00 GMT this morning was quite wet. Not only was it the wettest July day I have recorded since starting in 1994 at Rhode Hill but it was also the wettest day since 18 September 1999. It wasn’t quite a ‘month’s rain in a day’ but yesterdays 61.1 mm represents 75% of the average July rainfall for this site. Already with just six days of July gone that average of 81.7 mm has already been exceeded by a third with 108.2 mm.

You may also be interested to know that the rainfall for June at this site was 189.4 mm compared with an average for that month of 55.5 mm and represented an increase of 3.4 times that average. The wettest June that I have recorded here was that of 1997 with 199.8 mm although I can’t vouch that it was very accurate._________________It's later than you think

Not to my knowledge. It is interesting that the Met Office puts the current wet period down to the jet stream being in the ‘wrong’ position. The weather patterns to the north or south of the jet stream are quite different. It appears that to the north of the jet stream depressions are created whilst to the south anti-cyclones are produced. What we need is the jet stream over Iceland. At the moment it is directly overhead.

Of course for my theory to work we need winds coming in off the Atlantic which is what we generally get with a depression. These westerly winds at the moment are laden with moisture and as I have said it is the west of the country that will get the worse of the weather. In fact last week I couldn’t believe what I was seeing on the telly. Here it was misty, dark, cold and raining whilst Wimbledon could have been in a different country with sunshine and people in shirtsleeves.

The Met Office didn’t mention the reason for the jet stream to be so far south. Could it be climate change? Just googled ‘jet stream climate change’ and indeed there appears to be a connection._________________It's later than you think

Rhodie,
The starter-home site was completely flooded on Saturday.
Remind me never to buy a house there !

Thanks Martyn. I asked that question ‘ Is this floodwater affecting the starter homes site?’ because when the possibility of building a replacement school for Mrs Ethelstones was first proposed for the site a few years ago the fact that it was on a floodplain caused either the district council or the Environment Agency or possibly both to scupper the plans. Now we are seeing starter homes being built with a school to follow._________________It's later than you think

Posted: 25/09/12, 07:25 Post subject: Such a Dry September and then....

This time we did have a month’s rainfall in one day. The average September rainfall for this site at Rhode Hill is 59.5 mm. The rainfall for the 24 hours to 8 am on 24th September was 60 mm. With much the same rainfall as the deluge of July was there any flooding in the village on this occasion?

With two freak downpours within two months can we expect more of these occurrences in association with ‘climate freaking’?_________________It's later than you think